DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS (Chapter 17)

493

EXERCISE 17B.1
1 Find the i mean ii median iii mode for each of the following data sets: a 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9 b 10, 12, 12, 15, 15, 16, 16, 17, 18, 18, 18, 18, 19, 20, 21 c 22:4, 24:6, 21:8, 26:4, 24:9, 25:0, 23:5, 26:1, 25:3, 29:5, 23:5 2 Consider the following two data sets: a b c d Data set A: Data set B: 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 15

Find the mean for both Data set A and Data set B. Find the median of both Data set A and Data set B. Explain why the mean of Data set A is less than the mean of Data set B. Explain why the median of Data set A is the same as the median of Data set B. $23 000, $46 000, $23 000, $38 000, $24 000, $23 000, $23 000, $38 000, $23 000, $32 000

3 The annual salaries of ten office workers are:

a Find the mean, median and modal salaries of this group. b Explain why the mode is an unsatisfactory measure of the middle in this case. c Is the median a satisfactory measure of the middle of this data set? 4 The following raw data is the daily rainfall (to the nearest millimetre) for the month of July 2007 in the desert: 3, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 7, 1, 1, 0, 3, 8, 0, 0, 0, 42, 21, 3, 0, 3, 1, 0, 0 a Find the mean, median and mode for the data. b Give a reason why the median is not the most suitable measure of centre for this set of data. c Give a reason why the mode is not the most suitable measure of centre for this set of data. d Are there any outliers in this data set? e On some occasions outliers are removed because they must be due to errors in observation and/or calculation. If the outliers in the data set were accurately found, should they be removed before finding the measures of the middle? 5 A basketball team scored 43, 55, 41 and 37 points in their first four matches.

a What is the mean number of points scored for the first four matches? b What score will the team need to shoot in the next match so that they maintain the same mean score? c The team scores only 25 points in the fifth match. What is the mean number of points scored for the five matches? d The team scores 41 points in their sixth and final match. Will this increase or decrease their previous mean score? What is the mean score for all six matches?
6 The mean of 10 scores is 11:6. What is the sum of the scores?

494

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS (Chapter 17)

7 While on an outback safari, Bill drove an average of 262 km per day for a period of 12 days. How far did Bill drive in total while on safari? 8 The mean monthly sales for a clothing store are $15 467. Calculate the total sales for the store for the year. 9 Find x if 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17 and x have a mean of 12. 10 Find a given that 3, 0, a, a, 4, a, 6, a and 3 have a mean of 4. 11 Over the complete assessment period, Aruna averaged 35 out of a possible 40 marks for her maths tests. However, when checking her files, she could only find 7 of the 8 tests. For these she scored 29, 36, 32, 38, 35, 34 and 39. Determine how many marks out of 40 she scored for the eighth test. 12 A sample of 10 measurements has a mean of 15:7 and a sample of 20 measurements has a mean of 14:3. Find the mean of all 30 measurements. 13 Jana had seven spelling tests, each with twelve words, but she could only find the results of five of them. These were: 9, 5, 7, 9 and 10. She asked her teacher for the other two results and the teacher said that the mode of her scores was 9 and the mean was 8. What are the two missing results, given that Jana knows that her worst result was a 5?

DISCUSSION
Which of the measures of the middle is more affected by the presence of an outlier? Develop at least two examples to show how the measures of the middle can be altered by outliers.

MEASURES OF THE CENTRE FROM OTHER SOURCES

When the same data appears several times we often summarise the data in table form. Consider the data of the given table: We can find the measures of the centre directly from the table. The mode There are 15 of data value 7 which is more than any other data value. The mode is therefore 7. The mean Adding a Product column to the table helps to add all scores. For example, there are 15 data of value 7 and these add to 7 15 = 105. So, the mean = 278 = 6:95 40 Data value (x) 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Total Frequency (f ) 1 1 3 7 15 8 5 f = 40 Product (f x) 13=3 14=4 3 5 = 15 7 6 = 42 15 7 = 105 8 8 = 64 5 9 = 45 P f x = 278